


Long Way Home

by FilipaMariaKecharitomene



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: #rogue/gambitweek2021, #rogue/remyweek2021, Alternate Universe, Babies, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Family Feels, Forgiveness, Meeting the Parents, Second Chances, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29601837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FilipaMariaKecharitomene/pseuds/FilipaMariaKecharitomene
Summary: When Rogue's family tracks her down, the chance of reconciliation stands before her an' her soon-to-be Swamp Rat of a husband. Whether they can still accept one another remains to be seen. But sometimes you have to return home, to understand what you've left behind. For Gambit/Rogue Week 2021. Prompts include: 'Meeting the Family' 'AU' 'Trust Me'.
Relationships: Remy LeBeau/Rogue
Kudos: 13





	Long Way Home

_For Gambit/Rogue Week 2021._ **' _Meeting the Family" & "Trust Me"_**

 **Be sure to check out my other Gambit/Rogue week fics** _**Ama Me Fideliter,** _ **and** _**Never Stopped Looking** _

* * *

I'm coming home  
I'm coming home  
Tell the world I'm coming home  
Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday  
I know my kingdom awaits and they've forgiven my mistakes  
I'm coming home, I'm coming home~ Skylar Gray

* * *

I

Caldecott County in Meridan, Mississippi was the last true emblem of a tried and tired Southern town. And they enjoyed it, the slow-flowing turns and drifts of years 'sides their beloved river. Comfortably swaddled in the steadiness of their traditions, the folks there never could afford much in the grand scheme of things. So simple pleasures were all the more cherished.

And why wouldn't it be, with lazed evenings warmed red-gold by the sun? With hammocks rocking in the coolness of the cypresses, lemonade sipped by grandparents in the heat, Sunday clothes and brunch, while children played with bare toes in the grass and on good days, wasn't the most exciting thing for some was when their trotlines would tug?...well, some would say that this was as close to Eden as you could get outside of the Fall.

For the D'Ancanto's that what it had seemed like for a long time. But ain't nothing that good was meant to last, now was it?

To Pricilla D'Ancanto, paradise had fallen to the murky shades of hell and the silent condemnation of purgatory. And the house she had lovingly cared for these past twenty-one years seeming hollowed and emptied to her eyes now, as much so as a crypt. Had since her only daughter had vanished like a lonesome breath in the wind.

The forty-some brunette woman paused in her frantic dusting (she had been cleaning the entire house like a madwoman from top to bottom) twisting and wrenching the rag in hand and staring hard at the piano, the very one she had once taken pleasure in, had delighted in giving lessons to Marie on to help boost her confidence, her girl's eager fingers and charming smile still entwined with the black and ivory keys.

She had been playing this piano, when her life, and everything she believed about it, was destroyed before the green eyes she shared with her baby.

Truthfully, Pricilla blamed herself. She never should've let Marie disappear into her room with Cody -door open or no.

* * *

_II_

_Even before the knock came to the back door, seventeen-year-old Marie was bolting down the stairs two at a time, smiling wide as Cody Robbins, her best friend, grinned back at her, easy-going as always._

_Pricilla smiled knowingly as she watched. Ah, first love..._

_She wondered if today would be the day her baby got her first kiss._

_"Miss Marie," young Cody greeted grandly, bowing with an arm folded. Marie huffed softly and curtsied in her pretty white sundress, the only thing fit to wear in the steamy Mississippi heat._

_"Mr. Robbins," she greeted back, crinkling her nose, before they were both laughing, and she was pulling him up the stairs to her room._

_"Leave the door open young lady!" her husband, Owen, called up. And Pricilla swatted his arm, cause really, Marie was a good girl, and Cody was...well Cody. What could there be to fret about?  
_

_"Ah don' recall ya being such a stickler for propriety when we were datin' sugah," she noted drily, making her lover huff._

_"Marie's mah daughter, Cil, ya mah girl," he answered calmly. And as Pricilla sat down at the piano Owen's rough hands- that had served his country valiantly in the Persian Gulf- massaged her neck, stroked her skin, making her close her eyes as his kiss dropped to her head. Damn, all these years, and he still got it. "That makes a difference in a man's mahnd."_

_"Oh does it," she hummed, amused. Owen huffed again, rolled his eyes, and went back to his paper._

_She had only begun to warm up her scales when everything changed with her daughter's blood-curling scream.  
_

_It was a sound Pricilla had hardly heard before -Marie was a witty shy-yet-sassy-girl, preferring to peer with subtly curiosity at the world around her, like Dorothy 'round the Wizard's curtain, observing 'fore she made a wry note of anything._

_"CODY!"_

_Owen and she looked at each other, and at once she was climbing the stairs after him, heart pounding, pounding, pounding-_

_With the pound of footsteps, they were at the door, the green eyes they shared widening as they found Marie shaking her friend desperately, unaware that under her bare fingertips, more thick veins were rising up to meet her, stealing life._

_"Help!" their sole daughter, their only baby screamed, screamed when she couldn't rouse him. "Ah need an ambulance! Help!"_

_"Marie what happened?!"_

_And that was the question, wasn't it?_

_"Ah don't know!" she half-gasped, half-sobbed, as Cody continued to shake. "Ah don't know...Ah just touched him."_

_"Well, get off him, baby, and let the boy breathe," Owen ordered, going over to start performing CPR._

_Shakily, Marie let him go...tried to stand...and dropped against the wall as...something...came to her in a flood, gasping._

_Thought, memory, feeling, strength. Life itself, life that didn't belong to her._

_"What? What?" she muttered, grasping her head, eyes shut in fear of drowning in the reality and tunnels her mind was building. What was happening?_

_Horrified, Pricilla tried to go to her, gather her. "Ah'll called the ambulance, they'll be here baby, don't -"_

_"DON'T TOUCH MEH!" Marie shrieked, sobbed, something flashing in her eyes, something her own mother couldn't recognize._

_She knew the voice, she knew it, she gave birth to it...so why did it sound so...other?_

_"Marie, what's happenin'? Baby look at meh!"_

_She couldn't, eyes-rolling wildly._

_"Mama-" was all Marie could say, implore, beg, before she collapsed, unable to hold the weight of things not her own. The last thing she heard was her Mother's frantic screams._

* * *

III

Pricilla hadn't played the piano since then, every note lingering in the sorrow and memories.

The whole house did. The roses in the garden, where toddler Marie once helped out her Aunt Carrie (though she didn't like pulling the weeds, preferring to let 'em stay cause she 'felt sorry for 'em').

The screen door, where Marie in her cast-offs would drag in cats and dogs by the hundreds and demand they be given milk or treats or anything else she deemed necessary for their 'very survahval' (one such mutt -a yeller lab by the name of Jiggarh- managing to earn a place in the house for the long term.)

The rocking chair, where Marie would sit under her heart, listening to Pricilla sing, even when she was still kicking inside her. That rocking chair -now holding a miserable Jiggarh- was also where Pricilla had first felt her laber pains.

She shuddered hard, swallowing the now-familiar lump in her throat. A woman didn't get to stop being a Mama, just cause ya no longer had a daughter.

And it wasn't by choice neither. Marie, driven by who-knows- _what_ in her own head, had slipped out the very night that word came back, 'bout Cody being in a coma. They hadn't tossed her out...it had been an _accident_ , even Cody's family knew _that._

But Marie had still run. And she never came back.

At first, Pricilla had thought she'd die from the pure fear -her little girl out there alone and so young...she was sure one day a police car would putter up the dirt road, bearing the news of her daughter's cold body having been found. But that hadn't happened.

And any lead they had stopped once Marie had vanished over state lines...

Her daughter was gone.

So all there was left to do was try and understand what-the- _hell_ -had-happened.

Pricilla sighed and rubbed tired eyes. And boy hadn't _that_ been fun...

She pressed her lips.

...The word mutant had frightened her at first.

Even frightened Owen and Carrie (who came to live with them as support...and something of a suicide watch for her devastated sister). But Marie didn't get her quiet brash from nowhere, after all, so they rallied and dove in -into the books, the debates, the forums online. Carrie took the ones for mutants' rights, Owen the ones against, trying to work their way through the hogwash on both sides to the truth.

"Almost makes me wish Ah died in the Gulf," Owen muttered more than once, throwing Boliver Trask's book down on the coffee table with disgust.

"This guy ain't much better," Carrie stated, from behind her Time's magazine of Professor Xavier's interview, while flipping on the news with her free hand. "Are they s'posed ta be 'separate but equal' with humanity? No amount o' pie-in-the-sky-thinkin' is gonna make it possible to live side by side with folks that can wipe ya mind just cause their havin' a bad day an' lose control. It ain't like the Civil Rights moment...black and white were two sides of a coin. Equal. Human and mutant are like a coin and sleage hammah strapped to dynamite in terms of ability."

"So what's the solution then, Carrie?" Owen asked, irritable. "Kill 'em all? Ya own niece?"

Carrie glared at him. "Where did Ah say that? Ah'm just sayin' if mutants could coexist with humanity (if humanity does in fact the right to exist as it is an' not be replaced or outbred) they'd have to stop usin' their powers all together in so much that they could willing turn it off. However, that most likely have be an off-sect of both Xavier's, Magneto's an' Trask's form of thinkin', in that there's a group that integrates with humans and spends more of their time finding ways to suppress their powers without using murder, technology, force, or what...its..."

Carrie's eyes had trailed lazily back the television, and she froze suddenly, before shrieking for Owen and Pricilla to _get-the-hell-over-here-an'-look-_

When they did, there was Marie; charging headlong 'cross some sort of prison yard, dressed in black leather with green accents, rich brown tossed up in a high tail with the strangest white streaks. She was battlin' long side similarly dressed people against what seemed to be a collection of monsters.

_"And we're back over at Alcatraz Island, where a group of unknown mutants have allied itself with law enforcement, to stop the rampage of the Brotherhood-"_

And to Pricilla's horror, Marie didn't seem to have no sort of power that let her fight at a safe distance like her friends.

Instead, she ripped off her gloves and dove headfirst for the nearest skin she could grab, that happened to be from some blond pyromaniac tossing flames. Her touch dropped him instantly and then she began tossin' the flames herself, in offensive-defense. In all honesty, she did quite well...but then her borrowed power ran out, and some sabertooth lion-o'-a-man pounced on her baby, pinning her, and she didn't need Owen's military experience to know a murderer when she saw one.

Not when she saw the creature leer down at Marie, like she was breakfast.

Mercifully for her sanity, one of Marie's teammates -a tall man in a whirling trench coat- stopped and reversed course, pulling some sort of extending staff from his pocket and making it glow a furious purple as it swung through the air, contacted with the monster, and sent him flying away from her baby. That's when Pricilla managed to release her death hold on her sister's hand.

When the battle was over, and the reporter somehow got the nerve to approach the exhausted team, a regal black gal with white hair did most of the talking, but Pricilla's gaze stayed on her daughter, watching Marie's green eyes go soft and observing, as she leaned into that tall, crimson-eyed man decked in a trench coat -the one who'd rescued her in the fight, his lazed but protective arm encircled around her, claiming her at his side.

* * *

IV

All the team wore some sort of X on their uniform.

X. Xavier. _Mutants._ The Time's interview that had Xaviver's home address number. It wasn't hard to put together.

Pricilla's fingers trembled as she dialed the number offered by the interview, not daring to breathe while the phone rang. And rang. And _rang_ -

_Click._

And a regal voice, belonging to the Headmistress Monroe answered, weary, wary, but gradually willing to listen to her rambling pleas. Soon enough, her daughter's soft drawl reached out to her for the first time in four years, professional and direct.

_"May Ah help ya?"_

"...Marie?" The phone trembled in her grasp, her voice in her throat. And on the other end there's the sound of glass shattering, and a faint Cajun man's voice askin' if ' _chere_ ' was alright.

_"Mama?"_

Now her lip was trembling, eyes filling with the impossible.

"Yes baby, it's meh."

_"How...how did ya find meh?"_

Now Pricilla laughed, catching it in her raised hand.

"Baby, we never stopped lookin'" she whispered,gasped. "...but ya didn't want to be found..."

Marie was quiet on the other end, adjusted the phone. Her voice was distant, wobbly. "S'posped Ah didn't..."

"Ah know..."

It wasn't long before both women were bursting into tears -

And making arrangements.

* * *

V

Pricilla was like a Drill Sargent, giving orders on how the family was to conduct themselves for Marie's visit with her...her...

_Fiancée._

And Lord if that hadn't nearly knocked Owen and her over dead, then and there.

"Married..." Pricilla muttered, over and over. "Marie is gettin' married...Ah can't believe it, she just a girl..."

"Well, she _is_ twenty-one," Carrie pointed out drily, sipping her ice tea with lime. She winged up an eyebrow. "An' from his picture, can't really blame her for snatching 'im up quick."

Owen glared, and Pricilla allowed herself a weak smile, before resuming, finger pointed.

"No politics, no mutants, nothin'. This visit is 'bout puttin' this family back together, God help us. We ain't gonna tear it at the seams."

* * *

VI

There it was...home.

The home where she grew up at least. Rogue locked her uncovered hands around the old white picket fence, hair swaying like the Spanish moss from the sheltering trees, nearly shaking in her green sundress. She didn't remember it being so...small.

Then again, maybe her world had merely gotten bigger.

Her fiancée's rough hands, those gorgeously talented, nicotine-stained fingers, slipped around her waist, pulling himself against her, scratchy chin resting easily on her head, thanks to Rogue being 'vertically c'allenged' as he called it.

She huffed, lips twitching.

_Overgrown To-Tall Swamp Rat..._

"So dis is it, huh?" Remy's voice rumbled low in her hair, followed by his lingering kiss. She could feel the black tip of his fedora brush against her, tilted at just the right angle to hide his eyes.

She nodded, half turning in his grasp without breaking it, and was reminded all over again why she'd gotten the Cure as her palm brushed the canny planes of his cheek, feeling his day-old stubble before he stopped her hand and waited for her answer.

"Yeah...this was home," she whispered quietly, hushed, reverent, almost spooked. A pang of saddened longing rang through her, like a lone harmonica note drawn-out too long, the memories of herself as a little gal coming back. Standing here...it was almost like being a ghost in your own memories. And they weren't all bad memories at all...this yard was where she'd played in the sprinkler, danced with sparklers on the Fourth of July, and blew dandelion wishes. That tree still held her swing, lonely and waiting for a child that was never coming back.

Then there was the front porch, wherein a be-ribboned nightdress, she'd curled up with Mama, stiller than the waters on the Mississippi, when Pricilla D'ancanto took an heirloom silver brush and ran it one hundred times through her only daughter's rich hair. While Owen D'ancanto smoked, leaning against the porch pillar of their little house, pointing to the sky and telling some of the old star-tales from the Civil War.

Tales of brother against brother, families pulled apart for someone else's war...

"Ah never thought Ah'd be back here," Rogue admitted, her elfin features pinched and nervous as she pushed a white streak behind her ear.

Remy's brow furrowed, and his finger tipped-back her chin.

"We don' have t' be 'ere _chere_ ," his voice rumbled low to her. "Not if it t' much fo' y'. We go now, if-"

"No," Rogue shook her head, taking a shaky breath, steeling herself. "Ah haveta, Remy. Their mah family."

His mouth thinned here, the crimson of his eyes dimming slightly.

"Y' an' I both know family has a way of lettin' a body down, _ma belle. '_ Member Bobby's? _"_

Whose own brother had called the cops on 'em, when hiding out at his place. Like any of them could forget. Rogue worried her lip but held firm. After all, while Bobby hadn't been able to make up with his brother, he had exchanged regular -if tentative- phone calls with his parents and grandmother.

"It's my family," was all he said, simply, plainly, when other students at Xavier's accused him of being everything from a turncoat to a self-hater. "They're as much apart of my gene code as my powers. I can't just throw that away..."

Not without at least trying to hold on. Lots of people at the school didn't get it...couldn't get it, having come to Xavier with no family to speak of. No life left behind hastily shut.

"It's different Cajun," Rogue whispered, fingers twiddling. "They already _know_ Ah'm...or _was_...a mutant. An' they still went through all this ta find meh..."

She peered at him, imploringly, hands wringing. "Don't that _mean_ somethin'?"

Her lover was quiet a long moment, burning gaze unreadable for a spell as his thoughts churned within him. Finally, he let out a breath and nodded once.

"Y' can't blame a _homme_ fo' bein' cautious I hope, _chere_. Not when dere precious cargo involved."

His hands swept around to her front, his palm rubbing the space just under her stomach. Rogue reddened and huffed.

"Ah'm sure our son is gonna love being referred to as _cargo,_ Swamp Rat," she hummed drily.

"Dat ain't no problem _chere,_ 'cause it be a _belle fille_ ," Remy countered smoothly.

Rogue glared. "Boy."

Remy smirked. _"Fille."_

" _Boy._ "

" _Fille_."

"Olivier."

" _Rebecca._ "

The little girl's name rolled off Remy's tongue easily, a hope and a wish and dream and a fear, all in one.

Rogue blinked, and softened, stretching up on tiptoes to kiss him again and again, arms slipping gradually around his neck with a shyness she hadn't fully overcome quite yet.

"Don't matter what it is," she murmured, nuzzling into Remy's chest, breathing him in. "Our baby's gonna be lucky to have ya for a father, Swamp Rat."

She felt his kiss drop to her head, his hand rubbing her back. "Dat's another reason y' wanna do this, ain't it?"

She nodded, hand going protectively to her still flat stomach. "Ah'd...like ta know a family can pull itself together, no matter what happens..."

Remy paused a moment. "...Don' always happened, _chere_."

She peered at him softly. "But that ain't no reason not ta try."

* * *

VII

Her lover's eyes grew gentle at that, the red fading into the black, subdued, and his hand reached down to take her own.

"W'at we waitin' fo' then, eh?"

Rogue beamed at him, and took a deep breath, before turning with her future to put her past in order. And oddly enough, with each step towards the house, the anticipation grew lighter, easier, almost eager-

And that before she saw the familiar yellow form of her dog came barreling at her from the little hole in the front door.

" _Jiggarh?_ " she gasped, right before the pupper pounced, slobbering Marie with kisses.

"S'ould I be jealous _bebe_?" Remy chuckled, even as he moved to take hold of Jiggarh's collar, keeping him and his claws down and away from her stomach.

"Oh hush you," Marie huffed, giving her old boy a good ear rub (the dog that is, not her boyfriend) lips tremblin'-

"M... _Marie?"_

And then stopped altogether. Rogue and Remy lifted their heads to see a brunette, forty-some woman standing on the porch with her husband and her sister; looking at their visitors like she could hardly believe her eyes.

Marie swallowed. Hard.

"Hey, Mama, Daddy." Then her eyes widened. "Aunt Carrie?"

"Hey yaself Marie," Aunt Carrie returned with a wry, shaky smile. She cleared her throat. "Been too long sugah."

"Four years..." Pricilla droned flatly, face blank, making Rogue's smile dampen and Remy straighten with greater alertness as the woman came closer. "She's been gone foar _four. Years._ "

Yeah, with just about four lifetimes in between. Rogue shuffled, guilty, uneasy, and hardly noticed Remy's arm slipping around her waist, tugging her close.

Pricilla came to a stop right in front of the couple, Rogue saw her own green eyes burning into them with teary ferociousness. A reflection of herself, like the sky in a still pond.

"Marie, look at meh," she requested softly. And when she did, the burning did not subside. One hand reached up, but paused midway to touching her daughter's porcelain cheek.

"Are ya still mah baby?" she trembled. And Marie nodded, bringing up her own hand to meet her mother's, palms and fingers, brushing no different than they had the day she'd been born. Though now, both women wore engagement rings.

"Ah'll always be ya baby Mama," she told her honestly. And the next few minutes were a bit of a blur after that. Her mother, her father, her Aunt, all taking their turn in crushing her to them, with their bond of flesh and blood and so imperfect but-very-real-love from imperfect hearts.

So Marie hugged back, her own imperfect but-very-real-love waiting for 'em to receive.

With something a little more added to it. Wiggling free, Rogue gestured to Remy, who had stood back a little, hands shoved in his duster pockets, watching the display from a distance with a soft but unreadable expression.

"Mama, everyone, this is mah fiancée Remy Lebeau," she introduced, nearly gushed. And to her surprise, it was Owen -Marie had fretted over the possibility of her Daddy going for the shotgun- of all people, who was the first to acknowledge him, holding out a hand.

"We saw what ya did foar Marie durin' that rumble at Alcatraz, gettin' that...thing...off her. Watched it on the news," he said simply, by way of explanation. He paused before giving a solemn nod, one old fighter to another. "Thank ya."

Remy nodded easily back, stepping forward and taking that offered hand in a firm grasp; a dangerous grin spread wide on his mouth.

"Believe me, strikin' dat kitty-cat was m' genuine _plaisir,_ " Remy drawled out.

And Owen's gaze flashed understanding and he said no more.

Pricilla finally disentangled herself from Marie, smiling shakily. Her hands were fluttering as she gestured them all inside the house as evening set in shades of golden black about them.

"Well come on, come on, dinner's almost ready. Ah'll have it on the table in just a moment...and then, Marie, ya can tell us what ya been doin' with ya self..."

"An' she can tell us where she met you, handsome," Carrie joked lightly to Remy, making him grin back slightly.

"So come on, come on..."

Rogue held her breath as she climbed up the steps like she had more than a thousand times growing up...only now, there wasn't no more growing up to do. She was a woman now, almost a Mama herself, and soon ( _first_ ) to be a wife (though to Remy's credit, he had asked her before they found out...the timing was just good.)

She shuffled inside and waited till Remy was there to wrap her up again, solidifying her shift from frightened runaway daughter, to expectant ex-mutant mother.

"W'at got y' blushin' _chere_ ," Remy hummed at her with no small tug of his lips, as she went red at the thought.

She blushed harder, rolling her shoulder. "Just...strange to think, the last tahme I was here, I'd barely had mah first kiss. Now-"

"Now y' an experienced woman," he finished with a grin, looking far too smug.

Mortified she poked her finger into his side.

"Swamp Rat! Mah parents are here! This is their _house_ -!"

"Oh, they ain't a high an' mighty as they pretended while ya were growing up Marie," Aunt Carrie chuckled, swinging by their way with her cool ice tea. "Now knowing ya mother, it'll be half an hour 'fore dinner _close_ to ready."

Her eyes gleamed, and she grinned wickedly at Remy. "Enough time to show ya some of Marie's baby pictures, if ya interested..."

Rogue nearly choked on her own spit, but Remy looked like Christmas and Mardi Gras had merged together and decided to come early this year.

"Swamp Rat, don't ya _dare_ -"

"I'd most surely love that, _Tante_ Carrie," Remy accepted with a far too innocent smile.

* * *

VIII

One meal and many embarrassing family photo albums later, Marie was standing in her own bedroom to settle down for the night, Remy gallantly taking the guest bedroom to respect her parents. So she was free to take in how her pictures, books, and make-up were all right where she'd left them...the day she ranaway.

Her parents had removed nothing, and it was both unnerving and touching to see how it had been frozen in time, a snapshot of herself at seventeen years old.

She was torn from her musings by a soft tap at her window, making her start 'fore rolling her eyes and making for the window, lifting it up so Remy could slip within.

"What are ya, fifteen an' horny?" she chided him, though her lips twitched up and up. Remy's answering chuckle rumbled deep in his chest as he caught her up, laying her gently on her single bed -Before laying beside her and moving to cover them both in the sheets.

"Fifteen, _non._ Horny?" he smirked, eyes glowing wickedly as hellfire. "Always."

She huffed softly but soon was running her fingers through his lanky hair, as he kissed and nipped and nuzzled at her neck, sucking a little to mark it. Despite herself, Rogue hummed, whined, and soon arched up against him.

Always him. Only him.

Always.

"Remy, _please_ ," she stammered, mind barely hanging on to sanity, this whole thing 'remarkably akin to the night she'd lost her virginity to him (which had ended up creating their son).

Still, back to the matter at hand. She fumbled for the words. "Ah d-don't want _m-mah_ parents-"

"If I can't sneak into ya room at Xavier's without yo' Papa Wolverine findin' out an' killin' me, den I can take care o' it 'ere," he insisted, before kissing her right on the ear.

"Trust me, _mon âme_." he breathed.

Honestly, it didn't take much more convincing than that. Later, skin to skin in her childhood room, with their unmentionables hidden under the covers as their heartbeats slowed, Rogue shifted upward against his body, arms holding her to him as best as she could manage. And she kissed him again and again, tender shy caresses from her mouth to his.

Remy couldn't help but grin slightly as his _fille_ kissed him sweetly, with the look in her eyes just as awe-struck as the first time he tasted her like this; innocent and sweet, purer than holy water. He kissed her back lazily, running his hands along her sides and back, letting her press against him as much as possible.

"You thank y' husband like dat every time," he said, and kissed her neck. "He'll be quite de happy man."

"Glad ta hear it," she whispered, head ducking, embarrassed, even as her arms held him tighter. "Ah'm glad to know y' Remy Lebeau..."

His brow winged up. "Even though I know what y' look like with a face covered in birthday cake?"

Her face burned hotly. "Ah was three! An' a mite to excited-"

His sniggers rumbled deeper and his fingers flicked strands of white hair out of her eyes. "I thought it was adorable. An' I'm glad fo' y' chere, dat y' have good memories like dat here...dey loved y'.

He shrugged, and slowly added, admitted, "Dey still do."

She stilled, growing serious again. "Ah know...and its more than Ah could hope foar, but...its not the same. Ah'm not the same. Part o' meh is scared that they want the seventeen-year-old that ran away...but that gal don't exist no more."

Remy was quiet for a moment, taking that in. "Dat why y' didn't tell 'em 'bout de _enfant_?"

Startled, she looked up at him and shook her head. "Oh no, Remy. No. Ah just...they just got a daughter back. Ah didn't want ta spring a grandson on 'em at the same time."

Remy clucked his tongue disapprovingly. _"P_ _etite fille._ "

Her mossy green gaze narrowed, jaw setting. "Boy."

" _Fille_."

"Boy."

 _"Fille_ y' stubborn t'in'," Remy mock scolded, lightly smacking her rump and seizing her mouth fiercely with his own to stop her sudden squeal. "A _belle_ _p_ _etite fille_ with _mon_ smile an' her mama's eyes...and chocolate cake all over her face fo' her third birthday."

He added the last part just a tad too hastily, and Rogue leaned back, considered. And when she spoke, her tone was soft.

"An' I want a little boy just like his daddy," she said mildly. "Grin, hair, eyes...all of it. An' years from now, some little gal be lucky to have 'im...just like his family will be tomorrow."

Taking Remy's hand, she pressed it under the covers to her stomach, willing the unborn life safely sheltered there to feel his father's touch.

"Our Olivier," she said. And for once, Remy didn't argue with it.

"Olivier," he said instead, slowly, testing out the name, And for the first time, Rogue could see the image of a little boy forming in his crimson eyes. She smiled.

"And _then_ a Rebecca," she hummed. Remy's mouth twitched.

"Rebecca, " he agreed.

Breathing deep, he tugged her against him once more, tucking an arm behind his head. "Won' be all laughs an' giggles."

"No," Rogue agreed. "But they got a good start, sugah. An' a good example. Don't matter if things change or if they run. They can always come right back home. Even if they take the long' way."

Remy hummed, and something in his form seemed more at peace in the dark. "Dat they can, _chere_. Always."

_Finis_

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_Read and review. Anyone artistic on deviant art, please feel free to draw!_

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**Author's Note:**

> I always felt bad for Rogue's parents in the films when she gets her powers -her mother seemed like she wanted to help her but didn't know how. It always bother me that most of the X men's families don't seem to talk to them. It might be more dramatic to have the team with more connections to the human race and family loyalty.


End file.
